In my last blog, I talked about being a drama teacher.  The theme of my time in this CFE has emerged for me in this blog post – it’s been about helping students find their voice.

I’ve had the opportunity to do news interviews a few times over the course of my travels.  Mostly, they have been about events I’ve helped organize – Arts County Fair, a giant end of school rock concert that used to be UBC’s signature student event, Geek Week (a festival celebrating science) at SFU, that kind of thing.  On a couple of occasions, I’ve been asked to comment on my area of expertise – student recruitment, advising and retention at universities.  This year, through some random coincidence, I’ve been interviewed outside each of my practicum schools.

Both have had to do with a tendency I have to ask uncomfortable questions about decisions I don’t think are warranted.  The first one was on Translink’s proposed cancellation of the UBC Express service from West Vancouver.  Translink was using ‘cost per passenger boarding’ to compare the relative cost of routes.  On this measure, an express line with very few stops where people take a long trip is always going to look bad against a line like the #5 Davie St. bus downtown with lots of stops and passengers that travel short distances.  I argued publicly that Translink should be using cost per passenger kilometre.  This is a harder measure to capture, but asks the right question: ‘how much does it cost to move a given number of people a given distance?’. I also argued that Translink should place some value on peoples’ time as they made their decision – if you ask travellers to spend, collectively, thousands more hours per years on the bus, this should have an overall benefit to society or the system that outweighs the cost imposed on affected individuals.  Ultimately, Translink chose to rethink their plans.  I was very discreet about the interview at my practicum school – it was during on of my Thursday visits in the fall and I didn’t know whether the school culture would welcome it, so discretion seemed the best option.

This week, I was interviewed by CTV on Vancouver school closures.  This came out of the demographic analysis I posted on my blog and the fact that a classmate from my undergrad went on to become a reporter and thought the information added something to the conversation.  Again, it was a question of using my previous expertise in enrolment planning for universities to approach the questions in a way I didn’t see represented in the public debate.  I was gratified that the following day on CBC radio, the minister of education was interviewed on the Early Edition and answered a question about why school closures were justified by citing declining enrolments in Vancouver.  The follow up question was pretty much a direct quote of my blog ‘but aren’t school aged populations set to increase starting this year’.  The conversation changed just a little bit at that moment and the premise behind the policy direction was weakened.  This was a ‘win’ because it meant that more relevant evidence was brought into the public sphere in the policy debate.  This is an essential component for civil society.

So, where in all this is my CFE?  Well, it turns out I was a lot less discreet this time around.  A class was doing an outdoor activity a few feet away from the interview.  A fair number of kids at the school saw the interview on the news.  It also turns out the grade 4 class I was working with on coding was watching the whole time from their second story window.  When I arrived the next day to teach coding, they all wanted to know why the news wanted to talk to me.

I decided on the spot to teach a mini lesson and I think it sums up what I’ve learned about the IB experience well.  I started with a pretty open ended question: “why is learning math and social studies important?”  The answers were interesting.  Mostly they had understood that this learning somehow connected to their self-interest.  They pretty much all cited variations on ‘I will be able to use them to get a job and earn money’.

From there, I went on to frame my blog as my own personal Unit of Inquiry.  The inquiry question was: ‘are school closures in Vancouver the right thing to do?’ I told them I gathered evidence to understand my question.  I drew the direct connection for them the idea that I used the social studies and math skills to answer this question.  I then framed my blogging about it and my interview as my action taken based on my inquiry.  A whole inquiry question, research and action cycle completed in 3 days.

From there, I pointed out that math and social studies skills not only help us have jobs and make money for ourselves, they are also an essential part of how we can each be citizens.  This example, the curiosity piqued by the unusual event of a student teacher being interviewed by the news, led to the opportunity to show concretely that social studies and math are tools for citizenship.  Sharing your views to a news reporter is not just an avenue of citizenship open to those with fancy titles or famous people.  It can be anyone with curiosity, the ability to frame questions, the math and social studies skills to give better insight into the issue, and the speaking skills to communicate about it.  I also told them about how I made a mistake during the interview (I got one of the numbers wrong on the first pass at answering a question) and had to look up the numbers I was quoting to be sure – reinforcing the fact that mistakes are a fact of life and that it is always possible to fix them.  For some it was the first time they realized that an interview on the TV wasn’t live and you could go back and answer again, even though the camera was rolling.

And so, in that 20 minutes or so, I was able to role model how the IB inquiry process can be used in the real world to impact an issue that you care about.  It was also a great real-time test of my understanding of the IB inquiry process which I’d been exposed to over the course of the three weeks at the school.

So, when reflecting back on my main goal as a learner – getting a better understanding and fluency of the IB program, I think I’ve managed to achieve it.  If, along the way, I’ve helped students in the school see how they can engage in a bigger discussion as a citizen, and how the tools of IB are not limited to the petrie dish of the school curriculum; that their thinking skills and their voice are the essential two elements of citizenship, then that means I’ve met my goal as a teacher as well.  The teaching I’ve done, whether in music with the Ks, drama and poetry with the 6s, or inadvertent lessons with the 4s, shares that theme.

To this point, my teaching philosophy has been that my role is to help students become more sophisticated in their view of themselves and the world.  My experience in the IB program, with its focus on identifying actions that arise from that sophistication, has pushed my philosophy.  Students also need to be supported in finding their voice – defined very broadly – as well.

Today, the Vancouver School Board announced the possible closure of my old elementary school, among several others.

While I believe that school closures are not automatically terrible things – sometimes shutting a school down can lead to making a better system overall – I get the sense that the premise behind the school closure is flawed.  The question I address here is:

“Does a demographic analysis support the notion that schools should be closed?”

As we’ve heard, the province won’t fund seismic upgrades until a district has 95% utilization of its school sites.  But does this make sense?

Most in the public sphere have argued that having schools that aren’t fully utilized is a good thing – this “underutilized space” is actually used for music education, daycares, preschools, strong start centres and other important services.  This is a perfectly good argument, but I don’t have much insight to add to it.  But I do have something to add: my background as someone who did enrolment management planning for universities leads me to look at another angle: what do the demographics say about this issue?

Well, as it happens, the province has a tremendous resource on this question:

Pulling the data from the BC Stats Demographics website, which lets you look at the future school-aged population projection by school district, you can see a few things:

1. The population of school-aged children has declined from the early 2000s until 2015.
2. The population of school-aged children in BC begins rising in 2015 and continues to rise for about 20 years.
3. In the VSB, the school aged population in K-9 (the data cuts 15-19 year olds in one category, so it isn’t possible to zero in on K-12) will increase between now and 2035 by 32% – from approx 50,000 children aged 5-14 to 65,000 children aged 5-14.  You read that right: 15,000 more children to fit into schools on the 20 year time horizon.  What’s the response from the province? Close schools.

Now perhaps those predictions will prove wrong – housing affordability issues may keep that predicted growth out of Vancouver – but the point is that we are currently at the demographic low point.  Right now, we have the smallest the school-aged population since Gen X.  It is the smallest it will be until the grandchildren of Gen Xers hit the schools.  From a long-term planning perspective, this is the exact wrong moment to ‘right size’ the school district and require 95% utilization – we are right sizing to the smallest system we need on the 40-50 year population cycle.  Shutting down empty classrooms will likely lead to a predictable and avoidable explosion of portables in a decade or so.

So, my issue is not about whether there is virtue in 85% utilization vs. 95% utilization.  My issue is that when faced with a 32% growth in student population, why on earth would a government that claims it is responsible force that district to leave no more than a 5% buffer in its capacity?

See this differently?  I’d love to hear your comments below.

In Montessori’s original conception of her early casa schools in Italy, she wanted parents to play an integral role.  This is somewhat complicated today with lots of families having two parents working, so as I reflected on how to make this part of Montessori come to life, I thought I would try something a bit different for my practicum class’ field trip: A Family Field Trip.

The idea was simple. Schedule a trip on a Saturday.  Invite families. Bring my own family too.

I chose to go to SFU and attended the always fun Science Rendezvous on May 7th.  It’s a great event and as an added bonus is totally free – even the parking, so it was totally accessible.  I was wondering how many families would come.  Turns out, almost all.  We had nearly 60 people in attendance and 22/26 kids in the class.  Our group represented a significant chunk of attendees at an event that usually draws about 600-1000 people.

I added to the program of the day by arranging a tour of the Sierra Wireless Lab at SFU led by Professor Rodney Vaughan who kindly agreed to give up the better part of his own Saturday to host my class.  I also got to give a bit of a tour of SFU, my old stomping grounds, which focused on STEM.  My goal in that was to demonstrate how science is something that is happening in students’ own backyard.  It is not something that happens far away and also that they were under 10 years from being able to engage in that work themselves.  I suppose 10 years is still along time to an 11 year old, but ‘just beyond high school’ is not that far off.

Overall, the day was a success.  Parents got to chat with each other.  I shared some of my insights from a decade of advising families about university and it was useful: the families largely reported never having stepped foot on SFU’s campus before and wouldn’t have attended had it not been for the organized trip.

The only downside to the model is, of course, my own time (and that of my terrific spouse who attended on her birthday…).  I was really tired all week because I missed my weekend and my planning was behind schedule.

Now the question is: will I do it again.  The answer: probably – it was a great way to connect with parents, see the kids with their families for a longer period of time to gain insight about their home lives and get everyone excited about their class community and the great science that’s happening right at their doorsteps.  Even my spouse said she had a good time :).

Parker Johnson recently tagged me on Facebook for my opinion on this piece that was published a couple of years ago by a retiring, award-winning teacher in the US. Summary: The move to school accountability via standardized testing is not helping make education stronger and hampers teachers in what they can do.

A thoughtful discussion occurred among Parker’s Facebook friends. This is my side of that conversation:

It’s an interesting op-ed and very much of a piece with everything I’ve read by leading educators out of the US. One book I read suggested that as much as 1/3 to 1/2 of student time was spent writing local, state and national mandatory assessments.  Whether that was dramatic license or not, I don’t know, but even if it were half true – 1/6 to 1/4 of the time being spent on mandatory assessments – then it’s still too much.

But, credit where it’s due, the current BC Curriculum revision is being led, in large part, by teachers in the system. The philosophies underpinning the revision are based in the idea that less content and more concepts and analysis should be taught – if anything the critique is now reversed – science and math experts especially are concerned that teachers will struggle to implement the curriculum because it leaves too much to be imagined by teachers themselves and provides no textbooks to support the learning.

In short, this is a classic public policy case study – policy is a blunt instrument and you can’t have everything.

The kind of policies we see in the US appear to be aimed at holding accountable the least successful teachers. Why those teachers are ‘unsuccessful’ is a big question – as is simply coming up with an appropriate definition of success.  But in essence the idea is that too much latitude leads to poor results: if only we could tell teachers what to do and incentivize them into doing it, we would have better outcomes. But this comes at the expense of clipping the wings of good teachers. Classic Harrison Bergeron and lowest common denominator thinking.

The BC Curriculum is pitched at the most successful teachers. It gives them latitude and professional autonomy, but this comes at the expense of supporting the teachers least able to imagine their own approach to implementing the curriculum.  The ambition of the curriculum model is what is causing a fair degree of anxiety among teachers and I certainly believe that doing it well will require way more work than before for the median teacher.

But, being someone who thrives in creative environments, I’d rather have the autonomy.

The Hidden Dimension: University admissions and pedagogy

Where we will see challenges in terms of University success (and already are seeing challenges) is in terms of the orientation away from using work habits in grading (losing marks for submitting late, for example). The universities’ pedagogy is, mostly, old-school. The K-12 system is new-school and students have an ever-bigger leap as they try to bridge the gap from the K-12 ‘demonstrate your learning how you can and when you can’ approach to a classic ‘the paper is due on Tuesday, late papers lose one letter grade per day’ approach.

Another big challenge is that the K-12 pedagogy is pointing us away from using normed grades, for a variety of reasons, many of which are valid.

The challenge this poses is that it negates the ‘grades as social currency’ function of grades. We currently allocate scarce societal resources (usually educational opportunities) based on grades because they provide a reasonably reliable way to compare students to each other. The question that isn’t being asked in enough places as we move away from normed grades is:

“What replaces grades when we need to allocate scarce social resources like university seats fairly to students based on academic achievement/potential?”

Another interesting feature of moving away from grades (which the new curriculum is doing) is that it isn’t at all clear what replaces them.  The reason parents want straight A’s is not so much because it is the most beautiful letter, but because those grades unlock opportunities. This will push universities to create other ways of ranking students, and likely it will make the ranking systems more complex and therefore more opaque.

A ‘transparently gameable’ system like SFU’s admissions to most programs is, more or less, democratically gameable. It takes 3 minutes to explain that better grades = admission. The game is obvious – get better grades. Of course, there is a solid link between your grades and your parents’ income and education, but at least the less-well off don’t need to expend resources to gain insight into how to score goals and have a reasonable chance of maximizing their GPA.

Now, make the system more complex. Maybe you need an essay, perhaps you need to show ‘leadership’, ‘engagement’, ‘excellence’ – all the things that modern research on predicting success at universities suggest we should look for. The game now becomes more difficult to read. Experts exist who can, for a healthy fee, provide the kind of personalized system navigation that public schools simply cannot. They can explain the rules of the game and give you individualized coaching about how to play it so that you run up the score.

Gaming complex selection processes also has a wealth bias. International-level activities typically get far more weight than school level ones. But its easier for a wealthy family to support a child in, say, international gymnastics competition than it is for a poor one. Gymnastics is expensive, and you aren’t participating if your parents can’t afford it. It doesn’t mean that every rich kid will be a competitive gymnast, but it does suggest that the vast majority of internationally competitive <fill in the blank> will not come from low-income families. Repeat this phenomenon across a variety of fields (athletics, academic competitions, music and the arts, etc) and that’s what you call systemic bias.

It’s a natural instinct to game a system, so I certainly don’t judge any family that uses their resources to provide the best opportunities for their child. The challenge we have as educators is to be aware of the ways systemic bias creeps in, realize that there is no clear way to stop that (without some form of massive change) and, notwithstanding the seeming futility of it, try in small and subtle ways to foster those we can see with great potential towards opportunities that will help level the playing field somewhat for them and give them the opportunities to shine.  Systems are often designed to be blind.  Teachers are the eyes of the system and can be the main source of equity-oriented resilience needed in a system that focuses on equality.

Photo Credit: OSeveno (Own work) [CC BY 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons